Gerardus Johannes Berenschot

Gerardus Johannes Berenschot (24 July 1887-13 October 1941) was commander-in-chief of the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army from July 1939 to October 1941 during World War II.

Biography
Gerardus Johannes Berenschot was born in Solok, Sumatra, Dutch East Indies on 24 July 1887 to a family of Indos, of mixed Dutch and Indonesian descent. He attended cadet school at Alkmaar in the Netherlands at the age of fifteen, and he graduated first in his class from the Royal Military College. He returned to the East Indies to serve in the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army during the bloody campaigns in Aceh, and he became its Chief of the General Staff in 1934 and its commander-in-chief in 1939. He was well liked and well regarded by his US and British counterparts while participating in conferences with his Allied counterparts at Singapore during World War II, but he died in a plane crash in the suburbs of Batavia (Jakarta), Java on 13 October 1941 while returning from a conference, and Hein ter Poorten replaced him as commander-in-chief.